Kotsay could play some CF

Mark Kotsay spelled slumping Brewers right fielder Corey Hart on Saturday, and, in something of a reversal, he might begin seeing time in center field, too.

“Kotsay, he’s doing well, so we’ll probably try to get him out there a little bit more,” manager Ron Roenicke said. “Maybe he’ll end up in center field one of these days.”

The day before, Roenicke said he didn’t want to use the 35-year-old Kotsay in center field.

“I don’t,” Roenicke said Saturday with a smile. “He talked to me a couple of days ago about it. Physically, he’s doing really well. I would do it too much, but to spell [Carlos Gomez] every once in a while, I may do it.”

With Nyjer Morgan back on the disabled list, center field is again Gomez’s to lose. He went 3-for-20 on the first eight games of the Brewers’ road trip and was called into Roenicke’s office on Saturday morning for a brief chat about his at-bats Friday night.

Gomez remains a mystery. He put together outstanding at-bats in Spring Training that convinced the Brewers he’d turned a corner. But he’s regressed since the start of the regular season and entered Saturday with a .266 on-base percentage.

Hitting coach Dale Sveum was encouraged by Gomez’s progress beginning on a trip to Philadelphia last month. From the end of that trip through the following homestand, Sveum counted 23 consecutive quality at-bats. But now Gomez has again fallen into some bad habits.

How does that happen?

“You don’t know the answer to those questions because you can’t stand in the batter’s box,” hitting coach Dale Sveum said. “You’re not in somebody’s mind [to see if] he is able to slow the game down. Spring Training is a lot slower than when the third deck is out there. …

“This is a production-driven business and you’ve got to find a way to get it done in game situations. That goes for everybody. But through [Gomez’s] career, it has to start getting done more consistently.”

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